Wednesday, March 8, 2017

Does Judaism discriminate?

The answer is certainly yes. Judaism discriminates in many ways solely by birth. Someone who is born as a גוי has less קדושה then a Jew and is discriminated against by the Torah. Someone who is born to an Amalekite or one of the 7 nations is to be killed just because of the accident of his birth. Someone born a ממזר is discriminated against solely because he is a ממזר, he can't marry my daughter, he can be the biggest torah sholar but he can't serve on the Sanhedrin. Someone who is not born a כהן can never do the עבודה. The משיח will only be a descendent of David, in fact, Judaism mandates a hereditary kinsgship. The list goes on and on.

The mishna in הוריות יג states that regarding charity and freeing of captives a כהן is before a לוי who is before a ישראל who is before a ממזר. The gemara comments that this is if they are equal in torah. In other words, if you have a ממזר and a ישראל in jail and they are equal in torah you free the ישראל first period. Of course, if one is greater in Torah he comes before everyone else.

The Torah assigns different roles to different people and discriminates between them. The Torah does not believe in the American dream, not everyone can be the King, work in the Beis Hamikdash, be on the Sanhedrin etc. Women have a very different role then men and this is borne out in Halacha and Aggadda (see for example The Maharal's view of women - inferior).

The Torah really discriminates against non-Jews. The Torah view is that they are here to serve us. The story is told that when the Chofetz Chaim learned about a major earthquake in Japan, he began crying. Someone asked him, “Why is the Rebbe so troubled?” He answered, “Chazal tell us: ‘Calamities only come to the world because of Yisrael.’ We were meant to hear that message.” Imagine, millions of people were killed in an earthquake, and the Chofetz Chaim's only thought was it's all about us, the Jews. He wasn't crying because millions of people died, no, he was crying because it's a message for the Jews.

R' Yechiel Yaakov Weinberg (the שרידי אש) wrote the following in a letter to Professor Samuel Atlas regarding Judaism's attitude and discrimination towards non-Jews.
The entire world hates us. We assume that this hatred is due to the wickedness of the nations, and no one stops to think that perhaps we also bear some guilt. We regard all the nations as similar to an ass. It is forbidden to save a Gentile, it is forbidden to offer him free medical treatment, it is forbidden to violate the Sabbath to save his life
...
Can the nations resign themselves to such a deprivation of their rights? It is permitted to deceive a Gentile and cancel his debt as well as forbidden to reurn his lost object.  What can we do? Can we uproot our Torah teaching with apologetic formulae or clever deceptions?
R' Weinberg was one of the greatest products of Slabodka and was a classic Gadol along with being a master of modern scholarship. That someone of his stature could write this is truly hard to believe.

R' Shteinman considered the Gadol Hador today had the following to say about the non-Jews:
And today they say there are 8 billion people in the world. And what are they all? murderers and thieves, people without seichel .. but for whom is the purpose of the world? did Hashem create it for these murderers, for those evil people? Only for the tzadikim, those who learn torah, people who learn and keep torah. that is the purpose of the creation.
Those people who preach that Judaism has a universal message for everyone are simply lying or misleading themselves.

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